Thanks. I was hoping there was some way to voluntarily help those stats along. It's a known phenomenon in the linux community how much we hate leaving a crumb trail of any kind, but it would be nice to send a signal to game developers to start taking us seriously, and that might just be through steam stats after all.

Well that comes under point #3 but yeah

i still need a windows installation for those games that refuse to work on Steam (I play Helldivers 2 and Space Marine 2 coop and I can’t get expedition 33 to run on Linux

All three of those have a gold or higher rating on Linux, meaning they run fine on linux with little to no effort. Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2, Expedition 33. If you are having specific issues, check out the linked pages where people share their fixes.

Linux users are also more likely to be private people and not willing to share info about their system. Both of those two effects are probably pretty small and cancel eachother for this survey.

2 months in.
Linux Mint.
I am doing my part!

THERE ARE DOZENS OF US

I'm on Fedora and I always use the flatpak version of steam, which is listed as 4th. If you redistributed the flatpaks to the actual distro, I wouldn't be surprised if Fedora was in the top 10. Probably above CachyOS. Fedora encompasses all the immutable child distros like Silverblue, Kiniote, and Bazzite.

To your first point, it's not even so much the tariffs; it's the threat to our Canadian sovereignty. A lot of Americans see it as a joke, but a president shouldn't be talking about their allies like that. We don't really expect better from that waste of skin, but the lack of a response from the average American about this specifically is a slap in the face from our closest allies.

I think most of us have experience of the concept of something being said ironically, as a joke, at first but then being increasingly serious. It's like magic really does exist and if you say words often enough they start affecting reality, like a spell. Freedom of speech is a right but it's also a profound responsibility.

There always seems to be some sort of controversy going on about the devs' behavior from an ethical perspective.

The only controversy I've heard of was Manjaro forgetting to renew an SSL license a while back (probably 2 years ago by now), I wasn't aware there had been other issues.

I’ve been considering doing the same recently for the reasons you listed but I’m fairly technologically stunted. How did the process go for you? How smooth was the transition? I’m fed up with windows and need a change but I’m not tech savvy at all.

I use Linux Mint Cinnamon and the installation process was exceptionally easy and the desktop environment is very straightforward.

You might want to try to install Linux on like an old laptop or something first just to get the hang of it. I installed it on my main desktop first and it went well, but now all my computers run it.

I switched over about 2 months ago after I couldn't get an older game to play after a windows update and kinda just rage quit Windows. It was building for a while, but in the end it was just a little thing that brought it tumbling down. Game worked perfectly fine with proton without any problems or tinkering. I've only had trouble getting a couple games working, and neither are big deal breakers.

There was also an issue with a dev wanting to use donation money to buy a gaming laptop. That rubbed some people the wrong way.

To add on to this, if you don't have an old PC/laptop around, you can also try out practically any Linux distribution in a VM! Tools like virtual box are quite easy to setup.

You can also run most distributions on a live USB without it actually modifying your system, and can give you a better idea about hardware compatibility.

As a liberal in most ways (except on guns), and as a pro 2nd Amendment LGBT American, I'm sorry.

Many of us have "evil fatigue" and "ignorance fatigue" and are just exhausted from how many people in our country are total shitheads.

The list of people for me to apologize to:
-dead people in Gaza
-alive people in Gaza
-all Latinos
-all transgender people
-Canada
-all scientists
-intellectuals at Harvard
-Ukrainians
-Women who were killed due to abortion policies
-Anyone in a country killed due to a sudden lack of aid without much warning to even prepare

As a mostly liberal American, I just don't know where to begin. I also think bad environmental policies are going to destroy the planet, and when I look at conservative middle America and how intolerant and racist their values are, I am sort of like "well, maybe total planetary extinction isn't that bad"

I just don't know if I could change it at this point, if there's anything I could do.

The constant horror of the policies being enacted in this country is so terrible, that it's hard to really continue to say "sorry, we don't all believe this!" Some people protest, some don't, but really many liberals are also just treading water psychologically. It's quite possible that the fatigue being felt is being intentionally induced.

There may be a way to get past the fatigue, but it's being combined with financial stress, and for me, apologizing to Canada, standing up for Canada, is just not on the top of the list.

I really do not see what is happening as a conservative revolution. I see this as the self-centered wealthy class realizing they can exploit white trash and technology to destroy the middle class and create a permanent underclass and them. I do not think JD Vance Trump Thiel etc are actually religious, I think it is this final push towards neofeudalism.

It feels like it will unfortunately lead to either communism/socialism or neofeudalism, that there isn't a middle groud.

The neo-feudalists have made a bet: the white trash class is so numerous and so hateful towards transgenders and Latinos and "the other," that they can simultaneously eliminate many jobs using tech, reduce social services for poverty, and create a new Chinese-style of quasi-authoritarianism in America based on technology ans biometric information... And they can do this as long as they distract the white trash class with tricks and diversions: oh! Look! Mexican criminals! Look over here! Oh no! Transgenders in bathrooms! Look over there!

And so far, the magicians seem to be right. The yokel white trash of middle America, well over 60 percent of the country, is too stupid to realize they are being tricked by a magician.

So, many middle class people, and lower middle class people, especially technological enthusiasts, see what is happening. But what now? I'm exhausted. I do not know how to reason with idiots. I am just trying to brace myself for impact.

I just built a new machine, for a time I'll try some Steam on Linux. For the latest version of Ubuntu and an Intel 570. No idea what I'm doing, lol. (Normally just use Linux server).

Thanks for this, I’ll look into it. I don’t have easy access to an old laptop right now, so I’ll have to do one of the options you mentioned. I think I’ll look into the USB option first and see if it’s something I can figure out. If not then I’ll try the virtual machine. I appreciate the added info.